Date published April 28, 2015 by Shane Bryson. Date updated: March 27, 2017

Most grammatical rules help us establish clear structure in language, meaning that they’re not just rules for the sake of having rules—they’re rules for the sake of clearer communication. This article outlines some of the most commonly violated grammatical rules that effect clarity or logic and don’t fit easily under other headings like punctuation or sentence structure.

There are words that you should (mostly) avoid, but a handful of other words are simply misused or misunderstood. These prove useful in many situations and are used by nearly everyone, but their occasional misuse or abuse can sew confusion in your writing and turn your reader away.

This article lists some of the most frequently misused words, focusing both on issues specific to ESL writers and on issues for all writers of English.

Date published April 23, 2015 by Shane Bryson. Date updated: March 27, 2017

The following is a list of commonly deployed phrasal verbs that find one use or another in academic texts. These (and others) can be acceptably used in academic texts. Along with these examples, however, are a number of one-word substitutions to illustrate that in each case the phrasal verb can be easily replaced.

Date published April 21, 2015 by Shane Bryson. Date updated: March 27, 2017

We don’t account for adjectives in the article Adverbials (except with the linking verb, where a subject compliment functions as an adjective) because they always accompany nouns and tend not to move around sentences much.